Educational qualification of Indian politicians should matter, not sexual orientation

In January, a three member bench decided the matter required to be further debated by a larger bench | PTI

The only thing that will help our society accept a queer politician is awareness and time.

In a country like India where homophobic people continue to treat the LGBTQIA community unjustly, accepting a queer politician seems like a far cry. There’s already so much stigma around the subject and with other politicians talking about finding a ‘cure to the gay problem’ having a Leo Varadkar, a half-Indian gay Irish politician, in India looks like a dream that will never see the face of reality.

Majority of our country believes that homosexuality is a western problem. It’s not. Homophobia is. It was first thrust upon us by the British over 150 years ago through something called now known as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which states homosexuality as a criminal act.

Since Independence, we’ve been constantly fighting for the rights of LGBTQIA community. The challenges of living queer in India are well documented. LGBT people are have been declined employment and educational opportunities. For them to be expressive is to invite ridicule and sometimes outright violence.

The only thing that will help our society accept a queer politician is awareness and time. There are so many things that I was unaware of before sitting down to write down this piece. It has been enlightening and shocking. There are so many misconceptions and myths around the subject that need to change.

We can bring about that change; we are a country with a large youth population that has the power to influence. Democracy Wall, for example, has been changing the way we’ve looked at democracy. We students are now unlearning the wrong things that had been initially taught to us. That’s why I think the power of awareness and education will triumph.

I was about to end the essay here but I saw my father in my room. I asked him what his opinion on the matter is. My father, with whom I haven’t had a talk about heterosexuality, I doubted he’d have anything to say on homosexuality, let alone a homosexual politician.

He stopped what he was doing and said, “We live in a country where we haven’t got a clue what the educational qualifications of the prime minister are, it matters not what the sexual orientation of the politician is. We don’t need to know that, that has nothing to do with how he runs the country.”

“I’d vote for a dog if he stands by his promises to improve the conditions for the common man,” my father added.

With that being said, having a queer politician is starting to feel more possible than before. India has witnessed thugs, rapists and murderers as rulers in the past. A queer person should be more than welcome to become a politician like anyone else.

Falgu Mukati is a student of KC College (Colaba Campus), Mumbai is the winner of the opinion writing contest on the seventh edition of Democracy Wall.

This was in a response to the question asked by ThePrint: What would it take India to accept a queer politician?

Democracy Wall is a monthly free speech campus initiative organised by ThePrint in collaboration with Facebook.